Clark trash talks Seattle team in partisan tweet

VICTORIA – British Columbia Premier Christy Clark’s unabashed support for the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer club is drawing heated debate on social media over her comments directed at the team’s rival, the Seattle Sounders.

Clark is a Whitecaps season ticket holder and at a game against Seattle on Saturday she made a comment on Twitter about the Seattle team that some say amounts to trash talk that a premier should avoid.

She referred to the Sounders as the Seattle Princesses in a reference to what she called the numerous miraculous injury recoveries by players who were fouled by the Whitecaps.

“The Seattle Princesses are putting on quite a performance tonight,” she said in the tweet.

Critics immediately rebuked the premier, saying she was setting a poor example.

“I HATE the Sounders, however I also am raising a daughter in this province. #embarrassing,” one response to her tweet said.

Another user responded by saying: “I get it. You’re making fun of athletes by calling them women … Very funny.”

Clark was not immediately available to comment.

The first-place Whitecaps lost 3-0 to the Sounders.

When asked about Clark’s tweet at Monday’s practice, Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson smiled before saying he had no comment.

He then went on to congratulate Seattle on the win.

“They beat us and they won the game,” he said. “I made a point of going around and shaking every Seattle player’s hand on the weekend.

“If you want to win and enjoy it when you do win, which we do, you’ve got to lose gracefully, and we lost gracefully on the weekend. We respected them, we respected the organization because they’re a good organization. They’ve got good people and good players as they showed on the weekend, so credit to them.”